Written by I’ve enjoyed some laughs this morning at the expense of some folks who work so hard to convince themselves that State aggression can serve a legitimate purpose. Like most issues pertaining to the State, this is no laughing matter, but sometimes that’s all you can do.
I’ve been all over the net neutrality story, especially after finding out that the Electronic Frontier Foundation was endorsing it. We had Kit Walsh from EFF come on Free Talk Live, and Corynne McSherry from EFF came on Some Garbage Podcast. Both of them explained how the FCC was only going to take a very limited approach to regulating the Internet, and gave us all the assurances in the world that this was not a government takeover of the web. They kept using this catch phrase of “forbearance” and claiming that the FCC would only use a limited set of powers contained in the title 2 regulations they were advocating for.
Maybe it was just my anarchist bias speaking, but this did not sound plausible to me. My study of history tells me that governments have this terrible habit of overstepping any boundaries presented to them. Regulating the Internet is nowhere to be found in the US Constitution, but the government was about to do it anyway. If the federal government can’t abide by the constitution, there doesn’t seem to be much sense in expecting them to abide by a promise they made to a lobbyist.